I'm the captain of a relatively new team (almost a year), and we've been trying to break the barrier between good and great. We came into qb with natural proficiency in some areas (Geo, CE, Trash) and a decent working knowledge of others (History, Lit, FA). Over the last 6 months, we've devoted a lot of time to sharpening our skills in areas where sustained exploration and formal study are the norm for specialists, and are very helpful in competition (History, FA, and esp. Lit). We've gotten to the point where we match up decently to the better/best teams on our circuit (NYC Tri-State) in these categories. However, if the other team has a STEMish player, we often find ourself having great difficulty in that department. We're all seniors who have taken physics, chemistry, and even college-level bio, so we aren't totally at a loss here, but the work we did in these classes can sometimes seem divorced from the qb science canon.

I've taken it upon myself to rectify this inconvenient truth, and try and push our team definitively into the upper echelons of our circuit. However, where I generally knew the contours of the HS Lit canon before I began studying it, I feel totally at a loss with where to start studying sci. How do I, as someone with decent science experience but very little qb science experience, translate what I learned in my classroom into buzzes? How do I overcome the feeling that those two things oftentimes seem so separate, as if science TUs are written in a totally different language than my labs and quizzes?

Disclaimer: I'm not a science player. But if you're at a loss for where to start with science, the answer is the same as with any other category - read packets. Usually when I read through packets I skip science questions but our science player this year has some narrow weaknesses, so I've been forcing myself to read them thoroughly and picking a few clues to card, especially if it's in one of the areas he's weak in. That combined with science I've picked up just from hearing questions is enough to make me feel safe. There's a post about Becoming and Being a Great Science Player if you're trying to be hardcore though.